Ibrahim al-Rashid

Challenges Entered: Down the Rabbit Hole, Share Your Art, Documentable Wacky Hats or Headwear!

Projects: Nalbound socks based on ones used in Roman Egypt, paper in Muslim Iberia, A conical hat, stiffened with paper

Share Your Art: These are my latest pair of nalbound socks based on ones used in Roman Egypt. There are many surviving examples of socks made with the nalbinding technique and they can be found in museums around the world. The vast majority of the surviving socks are quite plain. While child sized socks often have multi-colored stripes, the adult sized ones are generally monochrome. Some have ribbed patterning at the ankle, but they are generally devoid of other decoration. However, I was pleasantly surprised to see two pairs of socks from Gebel Abou Fedah currently held in the Musée Dobrée (Nantes, France) which have a complex pattern created by the use of different types of stitches. This pair of socks was my first attempt at replicating the complex stitch patterns seen in the Gebel Abou Fedah socks.

Full details, including some photos of the originals and a full list of sources, can be found here:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1wp1z5SAkVIMIpesw6zRiTefAfrzrTlZb/view?usp=sharing

Progress photos can be seen here:

https://photos.app.goo.gl/U7uUy1Ag8ybqUPi29

Down the Rabbit Hole: Paper in Muslim Iberia.

In the course of trying to recreate a type of hat seen in images of Moorish men in the Book of Games of Alfonso El Sabio (13^th century, Castillian), I came upon two similar hats from Fatimid Egypt that were constructed with paper to create stiffness. In one, the presence of writing indicates that the paper had been reused. Given the similarity of these hats with the ones I was trying to recreate, I decided to take these as a model.

This, however, raised the question: What sort of paper would have been used in 13^th century Andalus/Iberia?

Like many people, I had assumed that paper was not used in the Middle Ages. Most books or documents surviving from Europe are written on parchment or vellum (which are produced from animal skins). However, paper did exist outside of Christian Europe.

Another point that I had incorrect assumptions about was the connection between ‘paper’ and ‘papyrus’. The Egyptians used papyrus as a writing material from at least the 6^th century BCE. (Bloom, 2001) However, despite the linguistic similarity, paper and papyrus are actually quite different. Papyrus scrolls consist of thin strips of the pith of the plant, laid down carefully in two perpendicular layers and held together by the plant’s own sap. Paper, by contrast, is formed from disorganized fibers or pulp. This structural difference leads to different properties in use. But, ultimately, the papyrus plant was not easily cultivated outside of Egypt (Bloom, 2001) and the greatest advantage of paper over papyrus was that paper could be made from a variety of materials.

While, paper was first made in China, it was adopted by the Muslim peoples of the Middle East relatively early. Excavations of 11^th century material in Fustat, Egypt demonstrated an “overwhelming preponderance” of paper over papyrus. (Bloom, 2000) Those documents themselves show varying qualities of paper, indicating a broadly developed industry. Bringing the focus back to Iberia, there are Christian manuscripts in the monastery of Burgos partly written on paper from as early as the 10^th century. (Bloom, 2000) There is documentation of a paper mill at Jativa (known in Arabic as Shatiba) in 1056. (Bloom, 1999)

So, paper was well-established in al-Andalus/Iberia by the 13^th century. Which means that reused paper would certainly have been available as a material for stiffening hats. But, what was that paper like?

A 13^th century manuscript from Yemen details the process for paper-making there. This particular manuscript says that paper made in Yemen used the inner bark of a type of fig tree (related to the mulberry tree used for this purpose in China) with pulp rendered so fine that is resembled cotton. (Gacek) Starch from white sorghum was used for sizing. Gacek indicates that paper from Jativa was made from cotton rags (Gacek) but Bloom indicates that Jativa was well known for its linen cultivation and that the mill there made paper from linen rags, sized with rice starch. (Bloom, 2001) And, overall, paper made from rags was more common and considered more desirable at the time. (Bloom, 2001) While modern “rag” paper is not actually made from reused textiles, it is generally made from cotton or hemp fibers, though one can find specialty papers made from flax as well.

An analysis of multiple surviving documents from the Muslim world (mostly later than the 13^th century, but the oldest from the 15^th) found a range of thicknesses. (Mahgoub, et al.) The modal thickness was approximately 0.125mm, which is approximately equivalent to 26 pound bond in modern manufactured paper. (Holland Litho)

So, I had a target thickness, fiber content, and sizing material. One other thing to consider is the texture. Mahgoub, et al. used a “topographic roughness parameter” to describe the roughness of their samples. However, I didn’t really have a way to replicate their measurements in selecting a paper to use, other than using the zoomed-in photographs as a guide. Additionally, hand-made paper has “laid lines” and “chain lines” which reflect the type of mold or screen used in the manufacture. (Mahgoub, et al.) Luckily for me, some modern artists find laid lines to be a feature, and so it is possible to find modern paper that uses some method to replicate these lines in the paper.

Ultimately, I may never know how closely any commercially available paper resembles the type of paper that was manufactured in the 13^th century. But, I learned a lot about what paper was like in the medieval Muslim world.

Sources

Bloom, Jonathan M (1999). "Revolution by the Ream: A History of Paper". Aramco. 50 (3): 26–39.

https://archive.aramcoworld.com/issue/199903/revolution.by.the.ream-a.history.of.paper.htm

Bloom, Jonathan. M (2000). "The introduction of paper to the Islamic lands and the development of the illustrated manuscript". Muqarnas. 17: 17–23. (2000) doi:10.2307/1523287. JSTOR 1523287.

Bloom, Jonathan (2001). Paper Before Print: The History and Impact of Paper in the Islamic World. New Haven: Yale University Press. pp. 8–10, 42–45. ISBN 0-300-08955-4.

Gacek, Adam "On the Making of Local Paper, A Thirteenth Century Yemeni Recipe" REMMM 99-100, p79-93

Holland Litho printing service, commercial website, accessed 24 March, 2021. https://www.hollandlitho.com/paper_thickness.html

Mahgoub, H., Bardon, T., Lichtblau, D. et al. Material properties of Islamic paper. Herit Sci 4, 34 (2016).

Meggs, Philip B. A History of Graphic Design. John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 1998. (pp 58) ISBN 0-471-29198-6

Quraishi, Silim "A survey of the development of papermaking in Islamic Countries", Bookbinder, 1989 (3): 29–36.